Morgan Lake’s survival is not a miracle.

Morgan Lake is a young woman who recently survived after her car was pushed off a bridge by a semi that didn’t stop. Kelly Wright at Fox News is puffing out his chest, cross necklace and all, claiming that we now have proof of miracles.

He opens with a Jon Bon Jovi quote:

“Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” — Jon Bon Jovi

This is actually true. When you take the word “miracle” as meaning an act of god and change it to mean “something with a low probability of happening, but still completely explicable through natural means” then yes, you will see some “miracles”. By the latter definition, it’s a miracle every time somebody dies in a plane crash. The odds that they were going to die were astronomically small. God must have backhanded the plane out of the sky.

Conclusion: god’s an ass.

Oh, what’s that you say hypothetical Christian? Plane crashes, though rare, are perfectly explicable through physics and human action? Gotcha. Now let’s talk about this Morgan Lake thing.

We should change our perception so we acknowledge miracles.

If we must “change our perception” to include supernatural explanations for what can be explained by realistic means, why don’t you just say “we should start accepting every hair-brained explanation that comes down the pipe”? How about this: we acknowledge miracles when there’s evidence for them?

Such is the case with Morgan Lake whose car plunged 40 feet off Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge into the water below. Incredibly, Morgan managed to survive the horrifying ordeal. Many news outlets have reported her dramatic escape from death after her car but her mother explained to me, when I met both of them Tuesday, that some of those stations and networks deleted Morgan’s words of gratitude to God.

During my interview with Morgan, she emphasized that she wanted the whole story told. She wanted me to let you know how God’s supernatural power gave her superhuman strength to break free from a watery grave.

God gave her superhuman strength? HOLY SHIT! What happened? Did she punch through the top of her car? Did she kick out the windshield even against all the water pressure? JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTONPOGOSTICKS TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!

As Morgan was driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, she was feeling the euphoria of having one of those spectacular moments in time. Then suddenly…calamity struck.

It all happened in an instant, in a blink of an eye, but it felt like an eternity.

Morgan had slowed her car to a stop on the bridge for a toll. In her rear view mirror, as she blinked her eyes, she could see a large tractor trailer truck approaching.

As she blinked her eyes again as the truck showed no sign of slowing down. After the third blink of her eyes…Bam!

Morgan heard the thunderous crashing as the truck rammed into the rear of her car. The momentum of the truck began pushing Morgan’s car forward. She could see the jersey wall and the water below.

God was watching, but decided not to stop the truck. Ok.

Her mind was frantically racing with thoughts and prayers for her car to stop on the bridge. Please, don’t go over this bridge into the water, she thought. Morgan felt helpless and she reasoned in her mind, “this is it! I’m going to die!”

So she prayed to god, who was watching the whole scene, that she wouldn’t go over the edge. What happened next?

After being pushed along, on the top of the barrier between the bridge and the water, Morgan’s car was now plunging into the treacherous waters below. As the car quickly submerged beneath the water’s surface, fear and panic gripped Morgan.

Fancy that.

Her seatbelt was locked and would not open, her arms were now flailing about, and her mouth and body were filling up with water.

Morgan says; “I started to feel the drowning sensation. I didn’t like how it felt.” With that, she felt a rush of hope as she told herself; “I’m not going out this way — I’m not dying.”

Then suddenly… fortune struck.

Morgan says in that moment of defying death she reached out to God. And she claims God turned her situation around; “I just felt as if God touched my shoulder and pushed me back against my car into my seat to relax me.”

Morgan says that divine intervention allowed her to unlock her seat belt and then pull herself out of the driver side window, swim to the surface, then swimming to shore where help arrived.

…that’s the feat of superhuman strength; unlocking her seat belt? Hey, I just performed a miracle of my own: I lifted my glass of water all the way to my face with only one hand. Where are the sign ups to become one of the X-Men? It seems like this whole thing is explicable by…wait for it…physics and human action. Just like plane crashes. But this one, this one is a miracle.

So god didn’t stop the truck despite Morgan’s prayers. God also didn’t unclasp the seat belt – that was all Morgan. And her window was open so the car filled with water, which equalized the pressure allowing Morgan to climb out. This is proof of miracles?

Ok, so when an SUV went into a lake earlier this year and three people died, is that proof that god doesn’t give a shit?

In a universe without a god, sometimes people will survive car wrecks and sometimes they won’t. This is precisely what we’d expect in a random, pitiless universe and, lo and behold, it’s precisely what we do see. Yet some people look at all the times when someone does survive and claim god must’ve helped, as if without god car crashes would always be fatal. One could use the same “reasoning” to point at all the wins by the Chicago Cubs and to then conclude that god is benevolent to them and that the Cubs are a great baseball team. It’s shitty logic that sounds great on the “oh, you were just so lovely so god made the effort to save you” side, but it’s a huge dick thing to say when you realize that it comes with a corollary: “oh, god must not have cared about those other people who died nearly as much.”

This type of thing is intellectually weak, but it’s also the zenith of pretension: all wrapped up in a nice little bow by people who think their religion makes them humble.

Conversation with my dad about this article:

When the villains are on the attack, she reaches deep inside and wrests forth her power to…unbuckle a seat belt.

When not defending the planet from inevitable apocalypse at the rotting hands of the undead, JT is a writer and public speaker about atheism, gay rights, and more. He spent two and a half years with the Secular Student Alliance as their first high school organizer. During that time he built the SSA’s high school program and oversaw the development of groups nationwide. JT is also the co-founder of the popular Skepticon conference and served as the events lead organizer during its first three years.

Jeff

She’d still lose to Magneto, though. Unless her buckles are made of heavy-duty ceramic or some such.

busterggi

Wonder how many people god let die just so he could rescue her?

CoolHeaded

Does JT Eberhard really know a lot about God? It sounds to me like he thinks he is an expert on God? He certainly can poke fun at people in a really funny way. He is like a comedian who picks stories apart and tries to attribute the works of others to God. Can this guy be for real? He is just joking I think because he doesn’t sound convinced that there is no God to me. I just don’t believe he is an atheist. He’s just a wanna be.

Jasper

“he doesn’t sound convinced that there is no God to me”

The only requirement to be an atheist is to not accept the claim that one exists. Positively believing one exists is not a requirement, and is arguably a fallacious position in itself.

CoolHeaded

“The only requirement to be an atheist is to not accept the claim that one exists.”

I never said I believe or disbelieve. I said he doesn’t sound convinced that he doesn’t accept the claim that one exists. I also agree with you in, “Positively believing one exists is not a requirement, and is arguably a fallacious position in itself.” because your so eloquent at stating the obvious. And he is still just a wannabe.

Jasper

“I never said I believe or disbelieve.”

I never addressed your beliefs.

“I said he doesn’t sound convinced that he doesn’t accept the claim that one exists.”

No, you didn’t. Seriously? This is like a few paragraphs up the screen: “he doesn’t sound convinced that there is no God”

This is a distinctly different statement from “he doesn’t sound convinced that he doesn’t accept the claim that one exists”.

In the first, the question was raised whether he positively believe there was no god. In the second, you’ve changed this to whether he’s not sure whether he doesn’t positively believe that there is a god.

Fred Dumbar

He never said you never said he never said that you said what he said. You said he said that, and the other guy disagreed.

In the end what you said really didn’t say anything at all.

Zinc Avenger

I never said I believe or disbelieve.

Of course, cupcake. You’re a true open minded seeker who also happens to be the arbiter of who is and is not an atheist.

Kodie

What signs are you looking for that JT is the real deal?

Steve Willy

wonder how many neck bearded douchebags clicked on this just to post something assine like you did

busterggi

If you had a valid answer to my question you wouldn’t have to resort to ad hominin attacks.

Steve Willy

If you had asked a valid question I wouldn’t call you a Hitchens-Dawkins parroting megadouche. And you might be able to spell ad hominem.

EvolutionKills

What, like how you misspelled ‘opposite’ as ‘apposite’ at the end of your reply to Jason Koskey? Oh yeah, you’re so self unaware and oblivious its funny.

Steve Willy

Please look up the definition of the word apposite before you indulge in any more neck bearded douchery, I meant exactly what I typed and what I typed makes perfect sense in context. Perhaps your ignorance of ultimate reality flows from this fundamental arrogance and unwillingness to learn.

Zinc Avenger

How many other times have you cut and pasted this specious sound bite and acted like its apposite?

Apposite: Apt in the circumstances or in relation to something.

Not seeing it. Are you sure you’re not just dumb?

Edit: Oh, I see, did you mean “acted like it is apposite?”

Then the word was correct, it was the sentence that was incoherent. Frankly, that’s not an improvement.

Steve Willy

But it’s enough to prove that you typed before you knew what you were talking about, and it calls into question everything else you type and say. Indeed, your demonstrated ingorance and willingness to form AND voice opinions with no real analysis calls into question your entire world view.

Zinc Avenger

Your inability to use apostrophes correctly which causes the sentence to become incomprehensible has no bearing on my world view. Or yours for that matter. It does, however, reflect poorly on your communication skills. Faith is no substitute for grammar.

Zinc Avenger

Pro tip: “its” is possessive. “It’s” is a contraction. Please continue to condescend. It makes you look SO COOL when you try to do it. Truly.

busterggi

I can explain my spelling errors as poor proofreading, you can’t explain why my question is invalid nor can you answer it.

randomfactor

Perhaps he spelled it correctly and merely addressed you as a near-human anthropoid with some evolving to do?

Zinc Avenger

Including you? At least one.

Len

The people who survive such events say that god helped them. The people who don’t survive such events say, er, not so much.

Steve Willy

You forfeited any right you may have had to be taken seriously when you refused to capitalize God throughout your post. This betrays your bigotry and undermines any claim you may have to being a “freethinker.” Rather you are clearly just a neckbearded mega douche who employs the familiar, circular reasoning that miracles cannot happen because, well, miracles are impossible. And why are miracles impossible? Because miracles cannot happen. This from someone who is supposed to embody a reason and logic

Jasper

Straw man. Can you even identify where he said anything even remotely like that?

What he was actually talking about was what theists define to be “miracles”, and how pathetically low that bar is set these days.

Zinc Avenger

I disagree with JT on the capitalization of God. If I capitalize James T. Kirk, I capitalize that other fictional character, God. On the other hand, that has no bearing on “freethinking”. I wonder if there’s a manual somewhere that tells theists how to whine about atheists, as there has been a sudden surge in people saying “YOU’RE NOT A FREETHINKER BECAUSE YOU DON’T NARROWLY INTERPRET REALITY ACCORDING TO MY MAGIC BOOK”.

How do you define “miracle”? A miracle is a nonsensical concept. If a miracle is something which can occur without supernatural intervention, what is miraculous about it? I HAVE A STICK! IT’S A MIRACLE! It seems to me that theists are determined to interpret any low-probability event as a miracle. I ROLLED A 6! IT’S A MIRACLE!

1 in a million chance will happen to 300 people in a population of 300 millions. Doesn’t seem so miraculous at that point, does it?

Rob

Speaking of not understanding probability

It’s not simply additive like that. I don’t remember the formula to get the correct answer for your 300 million, but the answer is actually a probability distribution.

Given a population of 1 million, there’s a 63% chance that it will happen at least once for a 1 in a million shot. (For each individual there’s 999999/1000000 chance it won’t happen. The chance that it won’t happen to anybody is (999999/1000000)^1000000, or 37%. The opposite of nobody is at least one)

ETA: Of course, there’s the other portion of probability that they don’t get. There’s a one in a million shot. Someone got it. What are the chances that someone got it?

It’s not the 63% I quote above. It’s 100%. Once something has happened, all the probabilities leading up to it are academic, it’s happened.

EvolutionKills

I’ll admit that mathematics and statistics are not my strong point, but I can follow along enough to be convinced. I’m trying to remember some snarky quote about ‘how miracles are only compelling to those who don’t understand statistics’, but I can’t remember it…

http://gamesgirlsgods.blogspot.com/ Feminerd

A 6? Bah I say! It’s when you need that 1 in 400 chance of a 20 to crit/20 to confirm that IT’S A MIRACLE!. Never mind that it will happen 1/400 of the times you roll that d20.

Zinc Avenger

Rolling 6 gets more miraculous when you vary the dice. 6 on D6? Not particularly miraculous. 6 on D12, twice as miraculous. 6 on D100, pretty miraculous. 6 on 6D10? Pass the rosary. 6 on D4? Praise the Lord and call an exorcist.

http://gamesgirlsgods.blogspot.com/ Feminerd

I have to say, 6 on a d4 would not be something I expected to see …

invivoMark

If it was our DM rolling for damage against my character, it would be entirely expected.

http://gamesgirlsgods.blogspot.com/ Feminerd

Oh. Yeah. I might’ve done that to one of my players recently.

I dropped 12d6+6 damage (crit alchemist bomb) on the poor witch. 62 damage done, only 4 points shy of absolute maximum damage. She exploded. Fortunately, I am also (sometimes) generous DM, so they have plenty of cash to get her raised

EDIT: So I can’t do math at all, apparently. 62 is not 4 points shy of absolute max damage of 78, but it’s still much higher than the average of 48.

Fred

6 on a D4, an unabashed cheater. Which can be fun on its own.

I have fond memories of an absurdly tough DnD fight where GM didn’t have quite the handle on how to run an encounter. Every player decided to cheat and didn’t tell the other players or the GM till the end. Turned out we all died several rounds ago and were just keeping track of the negative hp to find out how far dead they were and seeing if anyone noticed.

Michael W Busch

That’s almost as bad as the “my barbarian rage means I don’t die until it runs out, so I drown myself in a bucket to reset me to -1 hp on that round so I can be healed to positive rather than from -500 to -495″ trick.

Zinc Avenger

You people… All you people… Are my* people.

*That’s the “my” of belonging-with, not belonging-to, btw

Michael W Busch

I can get 5 on a D4 easily. It just requires a sharp blade and a weak die. Getting 6 is harder, since you need to make more than one cut.

(trick stolen shamelessly from Discworld)

Michael W Busch

When I played DnD, that seemed to happen more often than random chance. I suspect the DM was loading the dice in direct proportion to how effective our power-gaming was.

http://gamesgirlsgods.blogspot.com/ Feminerd

But I truly wasn’t loading the dice! I roll in front of everyone. I had people watching the rolls … I just have killer d6s, I think. And it was a nasty fight- alchemist in her lair, running fight, she gets time to pre-buff. She spent a lot of time tossing a bomb and then flying off, forcing people to chase her.

“I wonder if there’s a manual somewhere that tells theists how to whine”

Are you asking this question rhetorically?

Fred Dumbar

The only miracle is The Inanimate Carbon Rod.

In Rod we trust. Rod bless you.

Sometimes I don’t bother capitalizing god just to annoy willy-less dicks like Ms Steve Willy the bot pretending to be a human. They somehow think that leaving out the capitalization proves everything they ever thought about everything.

Unfortunately, they are much like the really stoned pot head who thinks they have found the solution to world peace, but are really just droning absolute nonsense and gibberish. Like a pot head, the irrational Willy can eventually kick their habit, get clean and start making sense.

Rob

How can one be bigoted against something that doesn’t exist?

Steve Willy

Wow, Rob is here now! Is there a single basement dwelling troll left in the multiverse who hasn’t yet dragged themselves out of the primordial oze to comment on this and to announce our collective atheism towards Thor, that gardens can be beautiful without fairies (a power rebuttal to fairy apologetics, by the way, but it leaves a lot unanswered about the Gardener), and that we cling to Bronze Age skymen due to our fear of the dark? Let me translate this into neckbeard: you are unoriginal, you are a douche, and you are wrong.

Michael W Busch

you are wrong

You have provided no evidence to support that statement. Nor are any of your other insults justified.

Also, I know of no one who says that “fear of the dark” is why religion has persisted. Religions are cultural and sociological structures, and while they may exploit fears that’s not why they continue to exist.

Rob

Nor are any of your other insults justified.

I will cop to unoriginal. If given an unoriginal premise, there is no need to be original in the response.

Steve Willy

“Also, I know of no one who says that ‘fear of the dark’ is why religion has persisted.” Perhaps if you knew how specious atheism’s slogans really are, you might rethink your position.

Zinc Avenger

You forgot “neckbeard” and “megadouche”. Otherwise, how will we know it’s you?

Michael W Busch

Atheism has no slogans. Individual atheists may.

And, as I said, I know of no one who says that “fear of the dark” is why religion has persisted. Stephen Hawking did once say that “heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark”, but that was a comment on how religious beliefs are wrong, not why religion has persisted.

You don’t actually care about God not being capitalized, but you’ll seize on that because it allows you to be angry. So angry that you can’t bear to read anymore of these compelling arguments. So angry that you can just substitute your own horrible arguments, attribute them to JT, and then get angrier at their horribleness. I like how you ended on a sarcastic insult. Rants are so much more cathartic that way.

But you can’t keep getting yourself all worked up and emotional forever. Eventually you are going to have to think. And the longer you put it off, the uglier it’ll be.

Steve Willy

Wow Jason, what an insightful pile of steaming pseudo-intellectual bullshit you just regurgitated onto my screen, I think a neck beard hair sprouted from my device when it loaded. How many other times have you cut and pasted this specious sound bite and acted like its apposite?

Loqi

Perhaps if you say “neck beard” a hundred more times your statements will be more coherent.

Drakk

This is like the most pathetic form of tone troll.

Steve Willy

Wow, you make some strong points, except … let’s put the Hitchens-Dawkins Kool-Aid down for a while and look at reality: Kalaam Cosmological Argument, the Argument from Reason, Fine Tuning of Universal Constants, irreducible biological complexity, the argument from morality…. Your entire world view lies shattered at your feet. If you truly honor the gods of reason and critical thinking half as much as you claim, you would plant your face firmly into your hand, step away from the device, find a quiet place, and rethink your life. The fact that you collectively have instead chose to post these Dawkins-Hitchens parroting megadouche replies demonstrates that there is no critical thinking involved in your neckbeardism. Yours is a petty, trivial, localized, earth bound philosophy, unworthy of the universe.

Drakk

I see the Gish Gallop didn’t die with the man.

Zinc Avenger

Your entire world view lies shattered at your feet. Your philosophy is now DIAMONDS. I’m on an Ark.

Steve Willy

Is there a basement dwelling troll left in the multiverse who hasn’t yet dragged themselves out of the primordial ooze and jumped into this thread in order to announce our collective atheism towards Thor, that gardens can be beautiful without fairies (a powerful rebuttal to fairy apologetics, by the way, but it leaves a lot unanswered about the Gardener), and that we cling to Bronze Age skymen due to our fear of the dark? The fact that you neck beards engage in such crap,then pat yourselves on the back for how cute it is, confirms what i have long suspected: atheism is incoherent:http://communities.washingtont…http://www.catholicthinker.net…http://www.peterkreeft.com/top…http://www.reasonsforgod.org/t…

Zinc Avenger

Strange, despite your accusations of “unoriginality” and “copy paste posting” elsewhere in the thread, that’s an exact copy of a post you put into this exact thread yesterday. You forgot “Dawkins-Hitchens” and “megadouche”, but I expect the tiny little buffer in your brain can only handle so much at once. We wouldn’t want you to get an overflow error!

Also, I’m sorry a beard scared you when you were little. You’ll get over it. Or maybe you won’t. It makes little difference to me, except that you are displaying a phobia over a male secondary sexual characteristic and I find that amusing. Try to grow a beard, if you can; you might overcome your fear!

Fun fact of the day: Fear of beards is called pogonophobia.

Steve Willy

“Fun fact of the day: Fear of beards is called pogonophobia.” Wow, you’re smart enough to look up a big word, AND you’re an atheist? I guess God is imaginary then, and 90% of everyone who ever lived was afraid of the dark. Case closed!

Zinc Avenger

I think you need a little more real-world experience before you play with the atheists. Your narrow homeschooled existence until now hasn’t really prepared you for interaction with people who talk back. You don’t have enough responses prepared, and you’re not quick enough to come up with anything on your own that doesn’t reveal your rather limited education and fear of learning.

Tell whoever prepared you for your little skirmish with the atheists that their little Warrior for God needs some seasoning, a little salt, and preferably a honey mustard glaze.

Kodie

You haven’t made a positive argument for god existing. You are just a blowhard. You can hate atheists all you want, but you can’t tell any of us why we’re wrong and you’re right.

Michael W Busch

atheism is incoherent

You have provided no evidence in support of that assertion. Instead, you have merely regurgitated things that have been refuted a thousand times before while hurling around bizarre and unjustified insults.

I’m going to lay moderate odds he’s an Eliza chatbot written by someone who got bored after typing in three lines of responses, thought “good enough for God’s work!” and unleashed it on us poor defenceless atheists.

Steve Willy, you just failed the Turing Test.

Fred Dumbar

This was my thought as well when I got deeper into the comments. Just a bot. A really, really stupid bot.

Steve Willy

“you just failed the Turing Test” You might be surprised to learn that when I got up this morning, my first priority was not to pass some neck bearded pussy’s made up test.

Zinc Avenger

I’ll give you a pass on not knowing what the Turing test is. After all, fundie homeschooling has a rather narrow curriculum and it discourages intellectual curiosity. Carry on, little Warrior for God. You’re dazzling us.

Steve Willy

My point is that it’s completely irrelevant to what were talking about and frankly, I suspect it’s some useless piece of information that you have no reason to know, other than to maintain your facade of pseudo-intellectual megadouchery. I fact, your comment really cuts to the core of Internet atheism as whole: learn a bunch of useless shit, and then try to make your opponents feel stupid for not knowing the same useless shit as you (Hitchens was notorious for this). It’s so sad, if only we knew what the Turing Test is, we poor ignorant theists might be able to one day advance into ‘Brights.’ Isn’t that your point?

Zinc Avenger

No, the Turing test is not particularly obscure. Slightly niche, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re in the minority for not having heard of it, or even having the curiosity to look it up.

The Turing test is just a simple test to see if a machine can pass as a human in conversation. You failed it. You were repetitive and simplistic in your responses, with large swathes of duplicated text, leading me to suspect you were a badly written chatbot. I’m still not convinced, since you could just be the operator who has swooped in to save his poor floundering Eliza bot.

I have to say, it’s a novel approach to have a chatbot pretend to be a fundie. With a little work, it could be a totally new alternative to the “therapist” model. Congratulations on your contribution to artificial intelligence.

Just a hint though: You should prime your bot with more responses. It gets boring quickly. You can’t just rely on “neckbeard” and “megadouche”, they’re played out at this point.

Oh, and you clearly didn’t pay attention to English lessons. The difference between “its” and “it’s” is important. Look it up. Learn something new.

Steve Willy

As I suspected, it is totally irrelevant and was interjected by you for the sole purpose of ‘showcasing’ your oh so superior intellect. Apart from Neckbeardom’s masturbatory obsession with everything related to AI (except the moral implications of creating same), this specious shit could have only been interjected to show that I’m a robot. That proposition could only seriously be entertained if you are a solipsist and do think any other minds actually exist. That would go a long ways towards explaining your otherwise irrational and militant atheism. Atheism and solipsism are, after all, kissing cousins since they both require the same amount of pathological skepticism. The only conceivable purpose of your self-referential, self-congratulatory blather would be if you thought it was funny. It is not.

Zinc Avenger

You have a rather noticeable attachment to words like “neckbeard”, “masturbation”, “pussy”, and “douche”. Are you going through puberty? The anger you feel is perfectly natural. You should channel it into something constructive. I took up running. It really helped to clear my head of all those hormones that were making it hard to think, kept me fit, and gave me a natural buzz. Try it!

I think you tacitly know deep down that its time for you to stfu. Search your heart, you know it to be true.

islandbrewer

They obviously decided to drop in a “Neck beard” parcel just for shits and giggles.

Steve Willy

“You have provided no evidence in support of that assertion.” To the extent that you and others call for ‘evidence,’ in my experience the atheistic/agnostic mantra of “there is no evidence” is typically premised upon an arbitrary and subjective definition of evidence. Because evidence is a legal term, and this discipline has written the most about the concept, it would make sense to consider the legal definition of evidence before declaring that there is none. “[E]vidence is defined as ‘all the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, is established or disproved.’” Forshey v. Principi, 284 F.3d 1335, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2002). “[E]vidence includes all the means by which any alleged matter of fact is established or disproved, and is further defined as any species of proof legally presented at trial through the medium of witnesses, records, documents, exhibits, concrete objects, etc., for the purpose of inducing belief in the minds of the court or jury.” People v. Victors, 353 Ill. App. 3d 801, 811-812; 819 N.E.2d 311 (2004). Notice the use of the terms “any” and “all” in these definitions. A whole lot of things count as “evidence.” Testimony is included within the definition of evidence, although it is “not synonymous with evidence” because evidence “is a more comprehensive term.” People v. Victors, supra at 811-812. In other words, personal religious experiences, COUNT AS EVIDENCE as that term has been legally defined, something atheists find hard to accept. This also means that the Gospels, for example – as “records, documents” – fall within the definition of “evidence” as well. Atheists and skeptics may say that these are not reliable forms evidence, but to say there is NO evidence is simply false. Also, the philosophical evidence for God’s existence (First cause, argument from contingency, argument from reason, moral argument, apparent fine tuning) might not strictly meet the definition of evidence, but the philosophical evidence does – coupled with the existence of the universe and consciousness itself – give rise to a “presumption.” A “presumption” comes about when the “finding of a basic fact gives rise to existence of presumed fact, until [the] presumption is rebutted.” Wilner v. United States, 24 F.3d 1397, 1411 (Fed. Cir. 1994). “Although not evidence, a presumption can be a substitute for evidence if it is not rebutted.” Id. Most atheists will freely admit that they have no evidence disproving God – they usually fall back on the fact that it is not their burden. However, if there is a presumption of God’s existence (and at least 4 1/2 billion people would say there is), then atheists do in fact carry the burden of rebuttal. Most atheists/skeptics confuse “evidence” with “conclusive evidence,” sometimes termed “conclusive proof,” which is defined as “evidence so strong as to overbear any other evidence to the contrary.” Black’s Law Dictionary 636 (9th ed. 2009). It is also defined as “[e]vidence that so preponderates as to oblige a fact-finder to come to a certain conclusion.” Id. There may not be, in the atheists/skeptics/neckbeards’ view, evidence that “obliges” them to accept God’s existence. But this does not mean there is no evidence at all, only that he has not seen what he considers to be “conclusive evidence.” Also, note again the first part of Black’s definition – “evidence so strong as to overbear any other evidence to the contrary.” Atheists admittedly have no “evidence to the contrary,” so ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL(i.e., personal religious experience) becomes “conclusive proof” by courtroom standards. So in summary: why do you reject the evidence? Because you consider the idea of God absurd. Why is the idea of God absurd? Because of the lack of evidence. Your entire atheistic world view flows from this circular reasoning, which itself flows from a fundamentally flawed concept of what “evidence” is.

Zinc Avenger

Theological arguments from a law dictionary. I’d say it’s novel, but you’re clearly copy-pasting from somewhere.

Yet when a defendant claims on the witness stand “God made me murder!”, nobody ever takes into account his PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE as anything other than evidence of insanity.

Steve Willy

But you just acknowledged its is ‘evidence,’ thereby refuting the go-to mantra of Neckbeardom.

Zinc Avenger

There’s that simplistic pattern-matching again.

HE SAID “EVIDENCE” THEREFORE DISCARD THE REST OF THE WORDS AND CLAIM VICTORY.

Zinc Avenger

I can actually sum up your entire wall of text above in three words:

Argument by assertion.

Steve Willy

I can actually sum up your entire existence of in three words: neck bearded douche.

Zinc Avenger

You’ve lead a sheltered life if you think that counts as a real insult. Try harder.

Jasper

There’s no way this guy isn’t a troll.

Zinc Avenger

Really? I think he’s sincere.

He’s boring now, he has nothing to offer past copy-pasted assertions and his own stellar contribution of “neckbeard” and “douche”.

His next positions on the Homeschooled Main Sequence could be either libertarianism or Kant (or, horror, both). Judging by his insults he’s still got a few years to go before he’s got this phase out of his system.

Someone saying “God made me murder” is not by itself evidence of insanity. It could be considered as having entered a guilty plea (which in US law at least would mean that the trial would be curtailed for a sentencing hearing).

Zinc Avenger

Martians exist! I’m a walrus! The far side of the moon is a hoax! The sky is green when nobody is looking! Russia is a collective hallucination!

There is no need for first cause, science has shown events without causes. The argument fails on its axioms.

And fine tuning? “This hole was designed for me said the puddle”. Never mind that the current constants have been shown to be not optimum.

Michael W Busch

To the extent that you and others call for ‘evidence,’ in my experience the atheistic/agnostic mantra of “there is no evidence” is typically premised upon an arbitrary and subjective definition of evidence. Because evidence is a legal term,

Your experience is lacking and your definition of evidence is wrong.

I am a scientist. When scientists say “evidence”, we mean empirical evidence collected following verified or verifiable methods that provide information that can be used to support or to falsify a claim about the universe. And the standards of additional evidence required to accept a claim become more and more stringent as it contradicts more and more of the prior evidence – until a claim is either completely disproven or shown to be so wildly improbable that it may be considered so (one of the standard ways to express this more precisely is called Bayesian inference – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference ).

Your claimed “philosophical evidence” is complete nonsense, as I have already explained, and so is not evidence in any sense of the word.

There are infinitely more false claims than true ones, so without evidence (again, with the appropriately specific definition of the word) a claim about the universe may be rejected – and rejected with a confidence in direct proportion to the implausibility of the claim. And claims that by definition can neither be proven or disproven are useless.

And you are wrong. I reject the idea of the existence of any gods because there is no evidence for it, and for no other reason. This is not circular reasoning. It does mean that I am technically a functionally-atheist agnostic, but until and unless sufficient evidence of the existence of a god is made available it is exactly the same as atheism.

And you continue to only say things that have been refuted a thousand times, so I will not reply to you further.

Steve Willy

“Your experience is lacking….”

Lacking in what? By what objective standard do you judge the value of ‘experience’? Is any experience that doesn’t conform to your atheistic presuppositions disregarded as ‘lacking’? If that’s the case (which I am almost certain it is), then your high-minded atheism, ostensibly the result of reasoned inquiry, is reduced to mere circularity. You see no evidence for the existence of God because you close your eyes and your mind to anything that points to the existence of God.

“…and your definition of evidence is wrong.”

Unlike you I have provided citations to authority for my definition of evidence. As established above, your definition of evidence is entirely subjective and subject to revision whenever you don’t like where it leads.

“I am a scientist.”

Argument from authority, an obvious logical fallacy. Unfortunately for Neckbeardom, you have failed to establish what kind of scientist you are or why your knowledge would be authoritative on these matters. So the argument amounts to “I consider myself really smart, and I don’t believe in God, so you shouldn’t either.” Pretty weak sauce.

” When scientists say ‘evidence’, we mean….”

It is pretty ballsy for you to use the word “we” here, as if you are authorized to speak for all of the millions of professionals in the world who would fall under the umbrella of “scientists.” Your arrogance betrays your bias.

Of course, the obligatory reference to Bayesian logic. Neckbeardom certainly does have its share of catechisms. But if you cherry pick the evidence that is plugged in to your Bayesian analysis, you can make it reach any result you want. And that’s exactly what you are doing.

“Your claimed ‘philosophical evidence’ is complete nonsense, as I have already explained, and so is not evidence in any sense of the word.”

First off, I’m not sure you’ve really explained anything so much as you have forcefully asserted the lack of evidence for Thor under the pseduo-authority of a self-proclaimed scientist. But perhaps more importantly, you have already announced yourself to be a man solely interested in truths verifiable by the scientific method. So you have disqualified yourself from commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of philosophical proofs. The only philosophy you could even arguably discuss coherently would be the philosophical position of scientism, which you obviously adhere to (consciously or not) and which, of course, is itself not verifiable by the scientific method.

“There are infinitely more false claims than true ones….”

I’m not really sure how you could ever know that, since there could be an infinite number of claims – on other planets, in other galaxies, in other dimensions, in our past that have been lost to history – WHICH YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD, much less had an opportunity to empirically test. The number of true claims that you have never heard, but that, unbeknownst to you and ‘science’ are objectively true, could very well dwarf all of the false claims ever made in human history.

“… so without evidence (again, with the appropriately specific definition of the word)”

You have not defined the term appropriately or specifically. Everything else you say suffers from this faulty major premise.

“And you are wrong.”

Oh, really?

“I reject the idea of the existence of any gods because there is no evidence for it, and for no other reason.”

I reject the existence of “gods” too, perhaps we can join forces against polytheistic bloggers? Assuming, of course, you don’t arbitrarily change the definition of ‘evidence’ to such a point that you cannot even believe in the existence of other minds to convince of their being “no gods.”

“This is not circular reasoning.”

Yes it is. See above.

“It does mean that I am technically a functionally-atheist agnostic….”

No it doesn’t. I can tell from your tone and your mere presence on this site that there isn’t an agnostic hair in your neckbeard. Even if your shifting and subjective definition of evidence allowed a single ray of God’s light to shine through, your biases would force you to reject it. You are only feigning a shred of agnosticism because you think it is intellectually fashionable.

“And you continue to only say things that have been refuted a thousand times….”

Where? By whom? You? Here? I see no evidence of any refutation or refutations.

“so I will not reply to you further.”

A unilateral declaration of victory. The greatest compliment a neckbeard can give. If you truly honored your gods of reason and logic half as much as you claim, you would have quit long ago.

EvolutionKills

That you find all of those easily refuted arguments so compelling speaks only of your own ignorance. Have you never seen any of them challenged by somebody competent? You speak with a confidence born of someone who seems to have never encountered arguments against your position.

So until there is evidence for any god, let alone a ‘god of reason’, why should we honor it? If this ‘god of reason’ was not you God, would you honor him too? Do I have to remind you of the 1′st Commandment (the commonly accepted one, not the actual 1′st Commandment)?

You’ve got nothing but presupposition, you simply assume the existence of a god. You then pull a William Lane Craig and swap out a deist/pantheist god for the God of classical monotheism without justification. Because you assume your God exists, now those arguments seem superficial compelling. You are starting with your conclusion and working backwards, it’s one of the most un-scientific things you can do. And it works not just for your God, but for every other god every created by man.

But if you never assume the existence of a god, they all fail to be compelling enough to even get you to deism. To find them convincing, you have to lower your bar of reason and evidence so low that you would need to believe in every weak supernatural claim. You’d have to accept the existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, el chupacabra, leprechauns, ghosts, spirits, fairies, wendigos, and the New Jersey Moth-Man to name just a few…

Steve Willy

I haven’t seen a coherent criticism of the argument in all of your pseudo-intellectual Hitchens-Dawkins parroting blather, apart for the fact that subjectively you are not convinced by it. Why does the neckbeard insist on making its points with so many unnecessary verbiage?

Zinc Avenger

Yeah, why so many unnecessary verbiage? I can English words gooder than you!

EvolutionKills

Simple answer jackass. Every argument used for the existence of your god, can be used to ‘prove’ the existence of any god. So if you want me to lower my standard of evidence and reasoning low enough to accept God and Jesus, I’d also have to believe in every other man made god every conceived, not just your unsubstantiated Yahweh.

Now they can’t all be true, but they can all be false and imaginary.

Steve Willy

Your criticism does seem to be the party line for Neckbeardom, but what it ignores is that if ANY ONE of them exists, your entire world view comes crashing down. I have never seen substantive response to this. The standard ‘yeah but Christians would go to hell if Yeshiva is a real’ does not qualify (you have to know that retort, which I know you were going to make, is just a non-sequitur intended to distract from the real issue) since my damnation would not be probative of God’s existence.

EvolutionKills

The big qualifier was ‘IF’ I was to lower my standards of reasoning and evidence. If instead I choose to hold all of your arguments to the same standards as modern science, then they ALL fail to ‘prove’ ANY god, your included.

Also, you’re arguing from simple ignorance and an appeal to consequence. How have you not noticed that? So what if I could be wrong, there is no reason to believe that your position is at all correct. I can’t believe you actually tried to pull a poor man’s Pascal Wager there, that is sad. So I have chosen not to pick a team in a game we have no evidence is even being played, and you’re trying to appeal to my ‘worry’ of who might win the championship game? “What if you’re wrong?” is not a form of valid argumentation, and this is something you learn in an introductory Logic class…

So it’s either lower the bar of evidence until all gods or supernatural claims are plausible, or maintain our current rigorous scientific standards and no gods are currently plausible. Since the scientific method has a solid history of working with proven reliability and accuracy, I’ll take it over the story books created over 2000 years ago by ignorant nomadic sheep herders (especially when those books have been proven to be wrong on just about everything, front to back).

Even in the first scenario, your god is far less likely than some other gods; this comes down to simple probability. Arguably the most basic concept of a god would be most likely, something like Pantheism. Now once you start adding on additional traits, that particular concept of god becomes less likely, the more hoops you have to jump through. Simply put, the more specific the desired god, the less probable that god becomes. So a Deistic god is more likely to exist than your god, but less likely than a Pantheistic god. Because the probability of a god that matches your specific god (anthropomorphic, all powerful, Jesus is his son, answers prayers, etc.) makes it far far far less probable than a simpler Deistic god. It also means that the Yahweh of the Old Testament is more likely than his New Testament version (more books, more traits, more assumptions, lower probability), and the Christian version is more likely than the later Mormon or Muslim additions.

But even if one day there was sufficient evidence to warrant belief in some higher power that might be considered a god, it would not shatter my worldview. My worldview would simply adapt to fit the known facts and evidence, and I can do this because unlike you, I am not beholden to defend a 2000+ year old man-made fairy tale against all reason.

Michael W Busch

No. The “Kalaam argument” is nothing more than the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion. The “argument from reason” is likewise flawed – and even C.S. Lewis (who first framed it) admitted so.

Nor are the universal constants finely tuned – we happen to be lifeforms that can exist with the values that the constants have, but all you can get from that is that if they had different values we would not be here to have the discussion. To say anything beyond that would require additional evidence.

Nor is there such a thing as “irreducible biological complexity” (as any competent biologist will tell you and Wikipedia and its sources cover at some length).

And morality is a human construct, without any external intelligence required.

And I personally knew all of that long before I had read or seen anything by Dawkins or Hitchens.

look at reality

I encourage you to do so. In particular, please look at those sections of reality covered by evolutionary biology, astrophysics, anthropology, and sociology.

Zinc Avenger

Careful, he’ll call you a neckbeard! Possibly even a megadouche! Then he’ll make comments about your originality.

EvolutionKills

The horror, the horror!

Michael W Busch

Oddly enough, I don’t find a lack of originality to be a problem when I’m saying well-established things.

I am confused as to why Steve considers where someone has hair to be an insult.

Zinc Avenger

That’s just what I’d expect from a nose-face like you.

Savpunk

I’m confused too, but really, really amused.

Steve Willy

“Wikipedia and its sources cover at some length” Wow, so you’re telling me atheists and their cherry-picked atheist sources support atheism at some length? Powerful stuff.

Zinc Avenger

Good! Believe it or not, despite the rage and the insults and the narrow minded ignorance you display, you are capable of noticing that it is possible for sources to be biased, and for arguments to be unsound. You’re wrong in the detail, obviously, but the ability to evaluate what you see and hear is what leads to atheism eventually. One day you will apply that to your own world view and watch it fall apart. Not today. Maybe not for years. But one day. I look forward to welcoming you as a fellow atheist.

Keep up the thinking and evaluating!

EvolutionKills

I swear, if more believers applied John W. Loftus’ ‘outsider test of faith’ to their own religious beliefs, we’d be done with this ‘religion’ hogwash a lot sooner…

Michael W Busch

No, sources are not “atheist” – the evidence has no belief, not having a mind. It is simply a collection of facts that shows evolutionary biology to be correct and that biological systems can and did evolve from simple precursors to more complicated systems by random mutations, selective pressures, and population-scale processes such as genetic drift.

Nor are Wikipedia’s sources on this matter cherry-picked. Nor are the religious views of the Wikipedia editors (only a minority of whom are atheists) at all relevant to the science. For example: I had a good talk earlier today with Ken Miller, the noted biologist and educator – I don’t know if he personally edits Wikipedia or not, but much of his work is included and referenced in it. He is a Christian – but he understands biology and the history of the evolution of life on Earth (and he took the “irreducible complexity” nonsense to pieces quite thoroughly during the Dover case).

You say this like we haven’t 1) seen all those arguments before and 2) already talked about why they’re absolutely awful arguments. Michael W Busch already covered them well, so I see no need to duplicate his work.

I honor no gods, as you would know if you knew what atheism was.

Steve Willy

“I honor no gods….” You honor nothing except your own solipsistic, nihilistic impulses, which is why you have latched on to an Internet fad cult.

Zinc Avenger

Strange, I consider Christianity to be utterly nihilistic as it stresses the meaninglessness of life in comparison to the afterlife. And as for solipsism, Christianity is a peculiar example of a displaced solipsism: The only really real thing in the world is God and we’re just His playthings.

Steve Willy

When you are done attacking straw men, constructed by you for your own intellectually masturbatory purposes, you might find the truth interesting.

Zinc Avenger

Oh, so when you tell atheists what we believe it’s TRUTH, when I tell you what Christians believe it is a straw man. I get it.

Try to hold yourself to your own standards, kid. It helps with credibility.

Steve Willy

Your entire rant was against a belief system that bears no resemblance to anything Christians teach anywhere. That is what made it a straw man. If you held yourself to your own standards, you would have ceased the discussion long ago. No atheistic position can be taken seriously until two threshold questions can coherently be answered. 1. Why is the atheist even engaging in the debate. On atheism, there is no objective basis for even ascertaining truth; there is no immaterial aspect to consciousness and all mental states are material. Therefore, everyone who ever lived and ever will live could be wrong about a thing. By what standard would that ever be ascertained on atheism? Also if atheism is true, there is no objective meaning to existence and no objective standard by which the ‘rational’ world view of atheism is more desirable, morally or otherwise, to the ‘irrational’ beliefs of religion. Ridding the world of the scourge of religion, so that humanity can ‘progress’ or outgrow it, is not a legitimate response to this because on atheism, there is no reason to expect humanity to progress or grow. We are a historical accident that should fully expect to be destroyed by the next asteriod, pandemic, or fascist atheist with a nuke. In short, if atheism is correct, there is no benefit, either on an individual or societal level, to knowing this or to spreading such ‘knowledge.’ 2. Related to this, why is the atheist debater even alive to participate. If there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife at all, only an incredibly window of blind pitiless indifference, then the agony of struggling to exist, seeing loved ones die, and then dying yourself can never be outweighed by any benefit to existing. As rude as it may sound (and I AM NOT advocating suicide) the atheist should have a coherent explanation for why they chose to continue existing. Failure to adequately address these threshold questions should result in summary rejection of the neckbeard’s position.

Hey, you came through the door marked “this way for an argument”. Don’t blame us for arguing when you leap in head first with rather milquetoast insults, debunked arguments, and flimsy straw men.

On atheism, there is no objective basis for even ascertaining truth [...] could be wrong about a thing

That’s the scariest part of atheism. No absolute value judgements. No redress. No justice but what we make for ourselves in the world. An atheist can be wrong about things, and because this is real life, an atheist will be wrong about things. That’s why we put so much emphasis on personal responsibility to back up your arguments and learn. It would be nice to have the comforting blanket of Ultimate Authority to tell us what is right and wrong and punish the evildoers, but if the only reason you’re not raping and murdering is because the Bible says not to, then that says more about you than it does about me.

Ridding the world of the scourge of religion, [...] no reason to expect humanity to progress or grow.

So you’re saying that true progress and growth can only be attained when you accept that the only important things happened 2000 years ago. Or maybe we can have progress and growth when you say “no sense waiting for a deity to fix stuff, lets learn new things and improve life for ourselves”.

if atheism is correct, there is no benefit, either on an individual or societal level, to knowing this or to spreading such ‘knowledge.’

Actually, there is. Religious people fuck with our laws. Religious people impose their warped values on society. Religions are used to control and oppress millions. From denying medical care to sectarian violence, religion does harm.

why is the atheist debater even alive to participate.

Because I like living. It’s where all the good stuff happens, as well as all the bad stuff. Don’t you like living? Is the only reason you’re not killing yourself because it is a sin?

neckbeard

Kid, your insults rank only just above the level of “poop head” in power and sophistication, and they don’t improve with repetition. Drop the insults and you’ll actually seem older and more confident.

Michael W Busch

Don’t insult the kids by comparing them to Steve Willy.

baal

The name “Steve Willy” is prototypical for neckbeards. I have now met no less than 7 neckbeards in my life. One went by Steven. The next two were both Willys. Numbers 4 and 7 were ‘stevens’ insteads of ‘steve’ and 5 and 6 were full ‘william’. Now, if you take all those names together and say god god god (3x, once for each neckbeard He has) you come up with “Steve ‘Neckbeard’ Willy”. I’ve posted this note to 60 different sites on the net and links back to themselves on those sites so that whenever someone google “neckbeard” they’ll wind up with “Steve Willy”. Steve’s neckbearded sin will make god hate him and cast him to the depths of Gehenna where he (steve the neckbeard) will play pinocle with Barney the Dinosaur for all eternity.

Michael W Busch

Your attempted mind-reading is a failure.

From having read much of what Feminerd has written, you may readily figure out the many things that xe honors. Many of them are other human beings.

And it happens that there were atheists before the internet (by many human lifetimes).

http://gamesgirlsgods.blogspot.com/ Feminerd

Teeheehee. I am not a solipsist (I am quite firmly convinced reality is real, not an illusion), nor am I a nihilist (I’m also quite firmly convinced life has meaning and value).

You sound really dumb when you misuse big words.

Fred Dumbar

Are you actually going to put up an argument or simply drone on and continue to insult everyone?

Michael W Busch

Miracles are almost certainly impossible because no one has ever provided sufficient evidence that one has ever happened, and when we investigate we always find mundane explanations that explain all available evidence (in this case, a woman who was able to unfasten her seat belt, and a door that was able to be opened). That is not circular reasoning.

And notice that JT already explained that:

How about this: we acknowledge miracles when there’s evidence for them?

Artor

Steve, “god” is a job description, not a name. Do you capitalize “teacher,” or “crosswalk guard,” or “freethinker?” Also, it’s not circular reasoning to observe that nobody has ever seen the laws of physics being broken.

Fred Dumbar

Talk about failure of reason and logic. All you did you attack him personally. You seem like such an angry hate filled person.

Is that what they teach you in church?

Kodie

If it’s not at the beginning of a sentence, why should ‘god’ be capitalized? You think it’s someone’s name?

I mean this was a bus full of folks who’d just been on a 3 day pilgrimage to the shrine of Padre Pio. Was he pissed they didn’t stay the whole week?

Jasper

[Insert ad hoc rationalization here]

Loqi

This troll is boring. Can we get a new one?

baal

Only a neckbeard would find this troll boring.

Fred Dumbar

She should thank the person who invented the seat belt, otherwise her brains would have adorned her windshield at worst, or been knocked senseless at best, and drowned.

But no, don’t thank science, engineering and liberal safety laws. Instead, thank the invisible man in the sky who could have just made the semi driver brake in time thus preventing any accident at all. I would think an all knowing all seeing all powerful God would be able to do something as simple as that.

Kodie

Drivers brake just in time all the time! Is this a sign that god is working miracles?

Goape

You pay the toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge before you drive onto it. It’s a small point but worth noting that it seems Kelly Wright even got the mundane things wrong in this news story.

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